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White House vows to take latest travel ban setback before the Supreme Court

The US Justice Department has asked the Supreme Court to rescind the latest federal ruling against the travel ban. A Hawaii judge expanded the list of family relatives that visa applicants can use to enter the US.

It comes after Hawaii federal Judge Derrick Watson expanded the type relatives of a US person or entity that will be allowed to travel to the United States.

The decision added grandparents and grandchildren among others to the list of those exempt from the ban, which previously included parents, spouses, children, sons- and daughters-in-law, siblings and step- or half-siblings.

Court partially reinstates Trump travel ban

In a statement, US Attorney General Jeff Sessions said that the White House would "reluctantly return directly to the Supreme Court" to overturn the Hawaii district court's decision.

"By this decision, the district court has improperly substituted its policy preferences for the national security judgments of the executive branch in a time of grave threats, defying both the lawful prerogatives of the executive branch and the directive of the Supreme Court," Sessions said.

Interpreting the ban

The White House's original order, enacted in January, imposed a 90-day ban on all citizens from Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen from traveling to the US. It also blocked all refugees from entering the country for 120 days.

While the White House claimed that the ban was necessary for national security and to combat terrorism, courts blocked the ban on discriminatory grounds. A second revised ban, which exempted citizens from Iraq, was also blocked until the Supreme Court partially reinstated it last month, with the exception of people with a "bona fide relationship" to the United States.

The court's language left it somewhat open to interpretation who has a credible claim to enter the United States.

The case came back to Watson after the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that he had authority to interpret the Supreme Court's decision.

"Common sense, for instance, dictates that close family members be defined to include grandparents," Watson said. "Indeed grandparents are the epitome of close family members. The government's definition excludes them. That simply cannot be."

Douglas Chin, Hawaii's attorney general who is representing the state as the plaintiff in the case, said the court had made clear "that the US government may not ignore the scope of the partial travel ban as it sees fit."

Such an assurance, Watson wrote, "meets each of the Supreme Court's touchstones: it is formal, it is a documented contract, it is binding, it triggers responsibilities and obligations, including compensation, it is issued specific to an individual refugee only when that refugee has been approved for entry by the Department of Homeland Security, and it is issued in the ordinary course, and historically has been for decades."

The Supreme Court is scheduled to review the overall case in October, by which time both bans will have run their course.